War of Secession

Revolution

Separatist groups in the eastern Empire go into open rebellion, culminating in a massive civil war that ravages the entire continent. The war ends with a much reduced Ulaeran Empire, a new nation in the Hightower Confederacy, and the vast territory of the Free and Disputed lands between them.

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Prelude

  Many nations overtaken by the Ulaeran Empire seethed under its rule, particularly those in the easternmost reaches, who had the least in common with Ulaeris and also considered themselves to be the height of civilization. Small separatist groups and guerrilla fighters had always operated in those areas, even after being brutally put down by Ulaeran enforcers.   After Ulaeris utterly failed to conquer Medirra, the central Empire fell into crisis. The rigid, bureaucratic, highly hierarchical nature of Ulaeran culture meant that someone must take the blame, and the resulting frenzy of inquiries, investigations, appeals, and infighting in the capital distracted most of the central government. The governors and princes in the far-flung colonies of the Empire saw the disarray, and plotted.  

War

  After 14 years of simmering and planning, several eastern colonies overthrew their Ulaeran governments and declared themselves the Hightower Confederacy. Many other states soon allied with them. Central Ulaeris, galvanized and united by this treason, declared war. The war ravaged the continent, and the fighting was fiercest in central Valbara, far from the capitals of Ulaeris and the new Confederacy. So devastating was the fighting that even today, nearly 30 years later, the grasslands of central Valbara remain mostly abandoned, and have been retaken by roving plains orc tribes.   The war ended with the signing of the Hightower accord, in which Ulaeris recognized the sovereignty of the Hightower Confederacy. As a stipulation of the accord, much of central and southern Valbara were freed from either Ulaeran or Hightower rule or occupation, creating a vast territory of newly independent nations. These Free and Disputed lands acted as buffer states as both the Empire and the Confederacy licked their wounds, and as warmongers on either side plotted their final conquest of the other.  

Aftermath

  Today, almost 30 years after the signing of the Accord, the world still reels and struggles with the new order. Ulaeris, much reduced and humiliated, is even more conservative and rigid than it was before. The Hightower Confederacy, founded on the promise of independent self-rule, is slowly falling under the sway of autocrats. The Free Territories grapple, with various degrees of success, with their newfound sovereignty, and many newly-independent city states teeter on the brink of collapse.   Western and northwestern Medirra have been overwhelmed by a glut of refugees, fleeing first the war and then the uncertainty of its aftermath. The area around Kachar has even come to be called the Refugee Coast. The lands west of the Karakor, once home to mostly nomadic herders and farmers, now teem with refugees and squatters. With no formal government to oversee these people, this area is now known as the Lawless Lands. The Ahadimoja who once fought back the Ulaeran invaders now debate whether to welcome these new people, or send them violently back to where they came from.